Roger Christie is a commercial pilot, former US Army conscientious objector who refused his orders to serve in Vietnam, and longtime drug policy reform advocate. As a resident of Big Island, Hawaii, he co-founded the Hawai'i Hemp Council and the Hawaiian Hemp Company. By 1991, he had one of the first retail hemp stores in the world. In June, 2000, he was ordained as a minister through the Universal Life Church and founded the THC Ministry as a cannabis sacrament minister. In 2004 and 2008, Christie ran for mayor of Hawai'i County.

Christie ran the THC Ministry in Hilo, Hawaii for ten years. For a $50 donation, a person could become a “Practitioner” and receive a plaque, an “affidavit of religious use”, two ID cards, and seven “Sacramental Plant Tags”. For $250, the donor would get a “Sanctuary Kit” which also included the “THC Minsitry Cannabis and Religion Guide."

On March 20, 2010, Federal agents raided the downtown Hilo sanctuary of Christie's Hawaii Cannabis Ministry, assisted by local police. Christie said authorities spent about seven hours searching his home and ministry, starting around 6 a.m. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Postal Inspector and U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service were involved in the search.

A three-count sealed indictment in June 2010 charged Christie with conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 100 marijuana plants, manufacturing marijuana and possession with the intent to distribute 240 marijuana plants. According to court documents, authorities also confiscated approximately 845 grams of processed marijuana in the Wainaku apartment and more than $34,000 cash from the apartment and a bank safe deposit box. The money and the apartment face possible federal forfeiture. Christie allegedly provided a daily average of one half pound of cannabis to
60 to 70 spiritual customers each day, or about 180 pounds (82 kg) per year.

Aloha and welcome – e komo mai

"Please say a prayer for the well being and strength of each of us to face our individual trials and win. Mahalo."

"Please use our blessing:

'God, that’s great! Please show us the blessings in this situation … and hurry! We are safe, we are loved and all is well.'

We’re looking for blessings now! Mahalo."

-POW Roger Christie

Christie was arrested on Thursday July 8, 2010, along with 13 others from the Big Island. The arrests culminated a two-year investigation by federal and county law
enforcement during which they seized 2,296 marijuana plants, nine
weapons, 33 pounds of processed marijuana, more than $21,000 cash and
four properties. He was taken to Oahu, where he was incarcerated at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center. All other detainees were speedily released on bail or signature bond before trial. But Hawaii Federal District Court Judge Alan Kay ruled that Christie must remain in federal custody until his trial, because Christie represents a “danger to the community.” Judge Kay's ruling was upheld by 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Christie is being represented by a public defender.

Continuing the family tradition of civic leadership, Roger's wife Share Christie ran for Mayor of Hawai'i County in 2012. Hawaiian senators Russell Ruderman and Will Espero have called for Roger Christie's release from prison pending trial; both senators visited Roger Christie at the Honolulu FDC on April 3, 2013. Sen. Ruderman has stated, “I have known Roger for over 25 years. He is
one of the most peaceful persons I know. To anyone who knows him, the
claim that he is a danger to the community is absurd.”

Christie’s trial was set for January 23, 2013; however, on Jan. 17, 2013, a federal grand jury in Honolulu returned an updated indictment with additional counts of marijuana sales in 2008 and failure to file a tax return in 2008 and 2009. Christie’s trial on federal drug trafficking charges has been set for July 23, 2013; he faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted. Six co-defendants have already made plea deals with the prosecution to cooperate with authorities.

Southern California medical marijuana patient and provider Aaron Sandusky is serving a 10 year federal prison sentence for operating a medical cannabis cooperative in full compliance with state law.

Federal authorities threatened clinics such as Sandusky's G3 Holistics, Inc. (Upland, CA) in 2011. In June 2012, Aaron Sandusky, his brother, and four other people were arrested during a DEA raid of the G3 Holistics medical cannabis clinic.

At a jury trial in fall 2012, Sandusky was convicted of possession with intent to distribute marijuana involving at least 1,000 plants. Sandusky received a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years on January 7, 2013.

Federal agents arrested 12 people in San Diego County associated with
Joshua Hester, who
was arrested in West Hollywood on July 9, 2010. The indictment claims
that Hester,
29, distributed 3,000 pounds of marijuana he purchased from a major Los
Angeles dealer in 2007 and 2008. Federal authorities also claim that
Hester was the silent owner of the San Diego's Downtown
Kush Lounge and Mission Bay's Green Kross Collective. The Mission Bay
location was co-owned with Joseph Nunes, who was arrested in a September
2009 raid by San Diego law enforcement.

Joshua Hester pleaded guilty on January
3, 2012 to eight counts including conspiracy to distribute over 1,000
kilograms of marijuana, conspiracy to maintain drug-related premises,
and conspiracy to launder money. Hester was sentenced
to 100 months in custody by U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez on
January 24, 2013.

Hester will serve over eight years in federal custody for operating Kush
Lounge and Green Kross Collective. Since October 2011, the U.S.
Attorney’s Office, in coordination with the
Drug Enforcement Administration, has issued cease and desist letters to
about 253 marijuana dispensaries in the San Diego County and Imperial
County. The Department of Justice reports that there was a 95 percent
self-closure rate in response to
the letters. Fourteen remaining dispensaries in the San Diego area
were raided in September 2009.

April 27, 2010 - Five gardens allegedly connected to the B&C Natural
Things collective in Ridgecrest were raided by NCIS, CHP, Kern county
sheriffs, Inyo and Cal City SWAT teams. Taken into custody were Erik
Christopher Stacy (27), Robert Davis Dodson, Jr, Charles Lee Kisor,
Charles Edward Klaus, and Geoffrey Edward Bliss. All are reportedly
charged with cultivation of more than 1000 plants, the aggregate of the
gardens. Each plant was labeled with a patient's name; the collective
had 450 patients.

April 27, 2010 - Five gardens allegedly connected to the B&C Natural
Things collective in Ridgecrest were raided by NCIS, CHP, Kern county
sheriffs, Inyo and Cal City SWAT teams. Taken into custody were Erik
Christopher Stacy (27), Robert Davis Dodson, Jr, Charles Lee Kisor,
Charles Edward Klaus, and Geoffrey Edward Bliss. All are reportedly
charged with cultivation of more than 1000 plants, the aggregate of the
gardens. Each plant was labeled with a patient's name; the collective
had 450 patients.

One day after he was interviewed on a local television station about his
home medical cannabis garden, Denver resident Chris Bartkowicz's home
was raided by the DEA . Bartkowicz was charged in federal court on on
February 16, 2010 with cultivating 224 plants (119 of which had root
structures and 105 clones). He pleaded guilty in October 2010 one count
of possession with intent to manufacture, distribute or dispense
marijuana. On January 28, 2011, Chris Bartkowicz was sentenced to five
years in prison, to be followed
by eight years of supervised probation; Bartkowicz will also undergo
mandatory drug and mental health programs.

Bartkowicz's release is projected for January 29, 2014 by the Bureau of Prisons.

Humboldt County resident Timothy Dellas was convicted on May 4, 2006 of one count of manufacturing marijuana and one count of possession with intent to distribute more than 1,000 marijuana plants. After a six day trial, the jury deliberated for five hours before returning a verdict. Dellas was sentenced in January 2007 to ten years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release.

The Humboldt County Sheriff turned the case over to
federal law enforcement after executing a search warrant in June 2003
based on information from an informant. At a pretrial hearing Dellas
testified that he was growing for dispensaries, and a dispensary
operator appeared in court and attempted to testify for him. At the
sentencing hearing in January 2007, Tim again testified that he was
growing for dispensaries, and later reiterated this in his statement
before the judge. Nonetheless, the court sentenced him to a mandatory
minimum sentence of ten years in prison and five years supervised
release. Dellas was re-elected as Manila Community
Services District President during his prosecution, but he resigned the position upon his conviction. He is currently serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, OR.

JAN 16 -- SAN FRANCISCO – United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan announced that Timothy Dellas was sentenced to ten years in prison and five years supervised release for manufacturing marijuana and possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute. This sentence is the result of an investigation by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. Dellas, 51, of Manilla, California, was convicted on May 4, 2006 for the manufacture of marijuana and possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute by a San Francisco jury after a six-day trial. The jury determined that Mr. Dellas possessed and manufactured more than 1,000 marijuana plants.

Mr. Dellas was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 22, 2003. He was charged with manufacturing marijuana and possessing marijuana with the intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) and (b). The two count indictment specified that Mr. Dellas knowingly possessed and manufactured more than 1,000 marijuana plants.

Mr. Dellas was arrested during the execution of a search warrant at 3500 Elk Ridge Road, Briceland, California, a rural address in southern Humboldt County. In executing the search warrant, officers found Mr. Dellas in a residence that contained a large number of marijuana plants, a scale, and packaging materials. Further search of the property revealed two additional buildings converted for the production of marijuana. These buildings contained large quantities of marijuana plants and elaborate grow rooms with lighting and ventilation equipment to cultivate the plants. In one of these buildings, a sign warned against leaving fingerprints. Additionally, agents found facilities to "clone" marijuana by growing clippings from larger plants. In total, over 5,000 marijuana plants were found in these three buildings.

Mr. Dellas’s truck, which was also on the property, contained documents reflecting the commercial nature of the marijuana cultivation. Transactions amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars were recorded. Receipts were projected in excess of a million dollars. In-partnership documents, expenses, and receipts were divided among the participants.

Mr. Dellas is to report to authorities to begin his sentence on March 12, 2007.

Civil attorney Dale Schafer and his wife, physician Dr. Mollie Fry, began
serving 5 year sentences on May 2, 2011 for cultivating medical
marijuana in a home garden that never had more than 44 plants at a
time. However, the federal government added up the number of plants
grown in the seasons between 2001 and 2005 and charged the couple with
growing 100 or more plants, which carries a 5-year mandatory minimum
sentence. The couple spent more than six years of litigation and three
years of appeals for charges of manufacturing and conspiracy to
manufacture and distribute cannabis.

Dr. Fry, a breast cancer
survivor who had gone through a radical mastectomy, grew her own
medicine throughout her illness, surgery, and chemotherapy. Schafer
suffers from
hemophilia and failed back syndrome, is under constant care, and also
medicated with cannabis legally.

Physician Dr. Mollie Fry and her husband, attorney Dale Schafer, began serving 5 year sentences on May 2, 2011 for cultivating medical marijuana in a home garden that never had more than 44 plants at a time. However, the federal government added up the number of plants grown in the seasons between 2001 and 2005 and charged the couple with growing 100 or more plants, which carries a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence. The couple spent more than six years of litigation and three years of appeals for charges of manufacturing and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cannabis.

Dr. Fry, a breast cancer survivor who had gone through a radical mastectomy, grew her own medicine throughout her illness, surgery, and chemotherapy. Schafer suffers from
hemophilia and failed back syndrome, is under constant care, and also medicated with cannabis legally.

YouTube Video

The judge wouldn’t allow any medical evidence. They wouldn't let us
tell the jury I was sick, or that I was a doctor. They
wouldn’t allow that I was helping sick patients. Ironically, two years
before the raid, local authorities asked me to tell them who of my
patients were 'really' sick, and who wasn't." I told them it wasn't my
job to police my patients, and that everyone who came to me had
legitimate health issues. They have treated us like criminals.

~Dr. Mollie Fry

Cannabis is proven medicine. Why would the state of California create
laws based on what the people want, and then allow the federal
Government to override them? I had cancer, we were growing
medicine. I was helping people.

On July 29, 2005, Canadian police, acting on a request from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), simultaneously raided the BC Marijuana Party Bookstore and Headquarters in Vancouver and arrested Emery for extradition to the United States outside a local storefront in the community of Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia where he was attending a HempFest.

American authorities charged Emery and co-defendants Gregory Keith Williams, 50, of Vancouver, BC and Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek, 34, of Vancouver, BC with "'Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana", "Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana Seeds" and "Conspiracy to Engage in Money Laundering". Even though all the alleged offenses occurred in Canada, Canadian police did not lay any charges.

Emery was freed on a $50,000 bail and prepared to fight extradition in the courts. Emery and his two associates, all charged in the United States with drug and money laundering offences, each faced a minimum 10-year sentence and the possibility of life imprisonment if convicted there.

On January 14, 2008, Emery had agreed to a tentative plea-bargain with U.S. authorities. The terms of the agreement were a 5-year prison term to be served in both Canadian and U.S. prisons.In return, he demanded the charges against his friends Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams be dropped

On March 27, 2008 the plea-bargain deal collapsed because of the refusal of the Canadian Conservative government to approve its side of the arrangement. In late 2008, an extradition hearing was scheduled for June, 2009. However, before those hearings Emery agreed to plead guilty to one charge of drug distribution and accept a five-year sentence in the USA.

On September 21, 2009, Emery entered his guilty plea, and on September 28, he was incarcerated in a British Columbia prison awaiting extradition to a US federal prison to serve the five-year sentence. There is a 30 day appeal period before extradition. Emery was granted bail on November 18, after seven weeks in the pre-trial centre, to await the Justice Minister's decision on the extradition order. While Emery was imprisoned, his supporters held a permanent vigil outside the prison with tents and banners for 45 days, ending when Emery was released on bail.

On September 10, 2010, Emery was sentenced to 5 years in prison minus time served. Until April 2011 Emery was held by the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the D. Ray James Correctional Institution in Folkston, Georgia. On April 20, 2011, Emery was transferred to Yazoo City Prison in Mississippi.

Medical marijuana grower Bryan Epis has been caught in a legal nightmare ever since June 1997, when law enforcement agents seized 458 marijuana plants and various computer documents from his home in Chico, CA. That raid occurred mere months after California voters legalized medical marijuana statewide, and Epis’s case quickly inspired outrage in the activist community. Not only was he charged with criminal cultivation, prosecutors used documents taken from the search to charge him with conspiracy to cultivate over a thousand plants. Epis was unable to mount a medical defense to his charges because he was prosecuted on the federal level, where state medical marijuana laws don’t apply.

When the case went to trial in 2002, prosecutors relied heavily on out-of-context excerpts from the seized computer documents, which had been printed from different computer programs in a manner that made them appear as a series of separate documents involving various locations. The jury ended up finding Epis guilty and he was given the mandatory minimum sentence: ten years in federal prison. Epis was incarcerated for over two years before getting released on bail pending appeal in August 2004, a move that gave him five and a half years of freedom to spend with his young daughter.

However, in spite of claims of prosecutorial misconduct and missing evidence, Epis lost round after round of his appeal. By February 23rd, 2010, he had exhausted his legal options and was taken back into custody to serve the remainder of his ten-year sentence.

Medical marijuana provider Virgil Grant III came to the attention of law enforcement in December 2007, when marijuana from one of his Los Angeles dispensaries was found in the possession of a young driver responsible for a fatal car accident. Although Virgil had nothing to do with the accident beyond this tenuous association, the investigation triggered events that put him squarely in the cross-hairs of federal prosecutors.

Along with his wife Pshyra, Virgil was arrested in May 2008 on federal charges of running a drug-involved facility, money laundering and drug conspiracy. These charges put the Grants in a difficult spot – although there was some hope that there would be a change of law once a new U.S. President took office, defendants in federal court have been unable to fight their charges by showing that they complied with state medical marijuana laws.

However, the Grants’ case never went to trial – instead, federal prosecutors offered Virgil a deal in which the charges against Pshyra would be dropped if he pled guilty to conspiracy to possess and distribute marijuana. As a loving husband and father, Virgil was unable to pass up such a deal. He took the guilty plea, and in March 2010, Virgil was sentenced to six years in federal prison.

After
the City of Modesto failed to shut down the California Healthcare
Collective by banning dispensaries, the DEA was called in. After a
15-month investigation, the DEA and Modesto Police Department raided CHC
and arrested four staff members of the collective.

Beyond his
local circle, the first impression of Luke Scarmazzo was that of a
talented young rapper who brags about "incorporating dope" and
conspicuously flips off the U.S. government in his debut music video.
The release of the video came just a month before federal agents stormed
into the California Healthcare Collective.

Even though Luke
claims that his music and his work at the CHC were separate, government
prosecutors explicitly intertwined them by playing the music video
during the federal trial. Defense attorneys protested that move, saying
it was highly prejudicial for the jury to watch a video where Luke
utters obscenities, portrays drug-dealing scenes and raps about
threatened violence.

In mid-May of 2008, the jury returned guilty
verdicts for the manufacture of over a hundred marijuana plants, and
also for various counts of possession with the intent to distribute. But
the life-shattering conviction was on another count – running a
continuing criminal enterprise – which carries a mandatory minimum
sentence of twenty years and the possibility of life behind bars. Due to
the severity of the penalties, Luke was immediately booked into Fresno
County Jail to await his fate. During a hearing in November 2008, Luke
was sentenced to 21 years and ten months in federal prison.

I gave medical cannabis to the seriously ill. I did not do so out of
lawlessness or lack of respect for the law, but was authorized to do so
under state law.

Free Eddy Lepp

After an August 2004 raid on Charles "Eddy" Lepp's northern California property, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported the seizure of 32,524 marijuana plants. According to Lepp, these plants were being grown by members of his Rasta ministry for qualified medical patients under California’s Compassionate Use Act. To the federal government, which doesn’t recognize state medical marijuana law, the grow was considered entirely illegal and Lepp was prosecuted accordingly.

Over the next four years, he won a number of victories against the U.S. government, overcoming charges from a botched sales sting against him and getting the search warrant for his raid thrown out of court. The case went downhill, however, when the judge ruled that the plants could remain in evidence because they were in plain sight from a public highway. The same judge subsequently denied Lepp’s religious use claim, ruling that rights of religious expression were overriden by the government’s interest in preventing the diversion of such a large quantity of marijuana. Lepp was still reeling from that denial, which he vehemently disputes, when his case finally went to trial in late August 2008.

Lepp himself took the stand in order to tell the jury that he was not guilty because he had not personally grown any of the marijuana; as he put it, he had simply opened up his land for use by members of his Rasta church. However, Lepp was unable to convince the jury of this claim. His emotional testimony about caregiving for his recently-deceased wife also failed to sway the jurors towards acquittal, and they quickly returned guilty verdicts on all charges.

During Lepp’s sentencing in May 2009, the judge reluctantly sentenced him to ten years in federal prison, saying the penalty was excessive but that she was constrained by mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Lepp plans to appeal his convictions.

After a car accident left him with both a disabling injury and a monetary settlement, destiny seemed clear for Montes. He wanted to start a medical marijuana dispensary in his Central California hometown, so that patients like him wouldn't have to drive hundreds of miles just to get their medication.

He followed this dream, partnering with former football buddy Luke Scarmazzo and starting the California Healthcare Collective in Modesto. But after a September 2006 law enforcement raid resulted in severe criminal charges, the two men would become the first medical marijuana dispensary operators to go to trial in federal court.

After two days of deliberating, however, their jury returned guilty verdicts for cultivation, possession with the intent to distribute, and continuing criminal enterprise. That last charge, which can carry a life sentence, required both defendants to be jailed upon conviction. This remand tore Montes away from his four-year-old daughter on her birthday, leaving his sobbing mother to collapse in the courtroom hallway and his pregnant wife to give birth to their first baby boy without him. In November 2008, Montes officially received a sentence of twenty years in federal prison.

I did run the medical marijuana dispensary. I accept
responsibility for breaking the federal law, but I wouldn’t be here
without the state law. That’s pretty much it.

Known as "D.C. Greenhouse" of the Merced Patients Group, no one has motivated activist sensibilities of central California like Dustin Costa. A former Marine and union leader, Costa brought a wealth of organizing skills and experience to the advocacy work he did on behalf of the medical marijuana movement. From his base near Merced, California, he led a group of nearly 300 volunteers on actions like citizen lobbying, protesting at important court hearings, and engineering community improvement efforts like graffiti removal.

Costa was initially prosecuted on the state level for his cultivation of a collective garden of nearly 900 plants. After nearly 20 court appearances, however, local authorities handed the case over to the U.S. Attorney and the prosecution began all over again on the federal level.

Costa went to jury trial in November 2006 and was found guilty on charges of the manufacture of marijuana, possession with the intent to distribute, and possession of a firearm. He has been incarcerated since his federal indictment, and has a release date set for 2018.

James Holland was arrested during a September 2005 raid of his medical marijuana dispensary -- the Free and Easy Cooperative in Bakersfield, California. The bust involved a wide assortment of local and federal agencies, including the Kern County Sheriff's Department, the Bakersfield Police department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Holland was indicted on charges including conspiracy to possess, cultivate, and distribute, as well as possession and cultivation with the intent to distribute, and possession of a firearm. Held in Fresno County Jail during the course of his prosecution, Holland eventually decided to accept a plea deal that offered him a nine-year prison sentence plus five additional years of supervised release.

Although his patients described him as a friendly, affable man, only two supporters were present for Holland's sentencing on February 12th, 2007. Holland is currently incarcerated in Herlong, CA.

The Editorjournalist@unitedstatesvmarijuana.comjamesdalehollandpow62466-0971